I could stay dinner, all else was forgotten. By a wonder, which I did not regret, Uncle Jack really was engaged to dine out. He had other irons in the fire besides the "Literary Times" and the "Confederate Authors' Society;" he was deep in a

scheme for making house-tops of felt, (which, under other hands, has, I believe, since succeeded ;) and he had found a rich man (I suppose a hatter) who seemed well inclined to the project, and had actually asked him to dine and expound his views!

Here we three are seated round the open window-after dinner-familiar as in the old happy time-and my mother is talking low that she may not disturb my father, who seems in thought.

Cr-cr-crrr-cr-cr! I feel it-I have it.-Where! What! Where! Knock it down-brush it off! For Heaven's sake, see to it !-Crrrr-crrrrr-there -here-in my hair-in my sleevein my ear.-Cr-cr.

I say solemnly, and on the word of a Christian, that, as I sate down to begin this chapter, being somewhat in a brown study, the pen insensibly slipt from my hand, and, leaning back in my chair, I fell to gazing into the fire. It is the end of June, and a remarkably cold evening-even for that time of year. And while I was so gazing, I felt something crawling, just by the nape of the neck, ma'am. Instinctively and mechanically, and still musing, I put my hand there, and drew forth-What? That what it is which perplexes me. It was a thing -a dark thing-a much bigger thing than I had expected. And the sight took me so by surprise that I gave my hand a violent shake, and the thing went-where I know not. The what and the where are the knotty points in the whole question! No sooner had it gone than I was seized with repentance not to have examined it more closely-not to have ascertained what the creature was. It might have been an earwig-a very large motherly earwig-an earwig far gone in that way in which earwigs wish to be who love their lords. I have a profound horror of earwigs-I firmly believe that they do get into the car. That is a subject on which it is useless to argue with me upon philosophical grounds. I have a vivid recollection of a story told me by Mrs Primmins-How a lady for many years suffered under

the most excruciating headachs; how, as the tombstones say, "physicians were in vain ;" how she died; how her head was opened, and how such a nest of earwigs-ma'am-such a nest!-Earwigs are the prolifickest things, and so fond of their offspring! They sit on their eggs like hens-and the young, as soon as they are born, creep under them for protectionquite touchingly! Imagine such an establishment domesticated at one's tympanum!

But the creature was certainly larger than an earwig. It might have been one of that genus in the family of Forficulidæ, called Labidoura-monsters whose antennæ have thirty joints! There is a species of this creature in England, but, to the great grief of naturalists, and to the great honour of Providence, very rarely found, infinitely larger than the common earwig or Forficulida auriculana. Could it have been an early hornet? It had certainly a black head, and great feelers. I have a greater horror of hornets, if possible, than I have of earwigs. Two hornets will kill a man, and three a carriage-horse sixteen hands high. However, the creature was gone.-Yes, but where? Where had I so rashly thrown it? It might have got into a fold of my dressinggown-or into my slippers—or, in short, any where, in the various recesses for earwigs and hornets which a gentleman's habiliments afford. I satisfy myself at last, as far as I can, seeing that I am not alone in the room -that it is not upon me. I look upon the carpet-the rug-the chair-under the fender. It is non inventus. I barbarously hope it is frizzing behind that great black coal in the grate. I pluck up courage-I prudently remove to the other end of the room. I take up my pen-I begin my chapter-very nicely, too, I think upon the whole. I

know exactly what I thought of Fanny Trevanion!

And all this while my father seemed in thought; and so, with my arm over my mother's chair, and my hand in hers-I answered my mother's questions, sometimes by a stammer, sometimes by a violent effort at volubility, when, at some interrogatory that went tingling right to my heart, I turned uneasily, and there were my father's eyes fixed on mine. Fixed, as they had been when, and none knew why, I pined and languished, and my father said "he must go to school." Fixed, with quiet watchful tenderness. Ah no-his thought had not been on the great work-he had been deep in the pages of that less worthy one for which he had yet more an author's paternal care. I met those eyes, and yearned to throw myself on his heart-and tell him all. Tell him what? Ma'am, I no more knew what to tell him, than I know what that black thing was which has so worried me all this blessed evening!

"Pisistratus," said my father softly, "I fear you have forgotten the saffron bag."

"No, indeed, sir," said I smiling. "He," resumed my father—“he who wears the saffron bag has more cheerful, settled spirits than you seem to have, my poor boy."

"My dear Austin, his spirits are very good, I think," said my mother anxiously.

My father shook his head-then he took two or three turns about the

room.

"Shall I ring for candles, sir, it is getting dark: you will wish to read?" "No, Pisistratus, it is you who shall read, and this hour of twilight best suits the book I am about to open to you."

So saying, he drew a chair between me and my mother, and seated himself gravely, looking down a long time in silence-then turning his eyes to each of us alternately.

"My dear wife," said he at length, almost solemnly, "I am going to speak of myself as I was before I knew you."

Even in the twilight I saw that my mother's countenance changed.

"You have respected my secrets, Katherine, tenderly-honestly. Now the time is come when I can tell them to you and to our son."

"I lost my mother early; my father, (a good man, but who was so indolent that he rarely stirred from his chair, and who often passed whole days without speaking, like an Indian dervish,) left Roland and myself to educate ourselves much according to our own tastes. Roland shot, and hunted, and fished,-read all the poetry and books of chivalry to be found in my father's collection, which was rich in such matters, and made a great many copies of the old pedigree; -the only thing in which my father ever evinced much of the vital principle. Early in life I conceived passion for graver studies, and by good luck I found a tutor in Mr Tibbets, who, but for his modesty, Kitty, would have rivalled Porson. He was a second Budæus for industry, and, by the way, he said exactly the same

a

thing that Budæus did, viz. that the only lost day in his life was that in which he was married; for on that day he had only had six hours for reading!' Under such a master I could not fail to be a scholar. I came from the university with such distinction as led me to look sanguinely on my career in the world.

"I returned to my father's quiet rectory to pause and look about me, and consider what path I should take to fame. The rectory was just at the foot of the hill, on the brow of which were the ruins of the castle Roland has since purchased. And though I did not feel for the ruins the same romantic veneration as my dear brother, (for my day-dreams were more coloured by classic than feudal recollections,) I yet loved to climb the hill, book in hand, and build my castles in

the air amidst the wrecks of that which time had shattered on the earth.

"One day, entering the old weedgrown court, I saw a lady, seated on my favourite spot, sketching the rains. The lady was young-more beautiful than any woman I had yet seen, at least to my eyes. In a word, I was fascinated, and, as the trite phrase goes, spell-bound.' I seated myself at a little distance, and contemplated her without desiring to speak. By-and-by, from another part of the ruins, which were then uninhabited, came a tall, imposing, elderly gentleman, with a benignant aspect; and a little dog. The dog ran up to me, barking. This drew the attention of both lady and gentleman to me. The gentleman approached, called off the dog, and apologised with much politeness. Surveying me somewhat curiously, he then began to ask questions about the old place and the family it had belonged to, with the name and antecedents of which he was well acquainted. By degrees it came out that I was the descendant of that family, and the younger son of the humble rector who was now its representative. The gentleman then introduced himself to me as the Earl of Rainsforth, the principal proprietor in the neighbourhood, but who had so rarely visited the county during my childhood and earlier youth, that I had never before seen him. His only son, however, a young man of great promise, had been at the same college with me in my first year at the university. The young lord was a reading man and a scholar; and we had become slightly acquainted when he left for his travels.

"Now, on hearing my name, Lord Rainsforth took my hand cordially, and leading me to his daughter, said, ، Think, Ellinor, how fortunate; this is the Mr Caxton whom your brother so often spoke of.'

6

"In short, my dear Pisistratus, the ice was broken, the acquaintance made, and Lord Rainsforth, saying he was come to atone for his long absence from the county, and to reside at Compton the greater part of the year, pressed me to visit him. I did so. Lord Rainsforth's liking to me increased: I went there often."

My father paused, and seeing my mother had fixed her eyes upon him with a sort of mournful earnestness, and had pressed her hands very tightly together, he bent down and kissed her forehead.

"There is no cause, my child! ” said he. It is the only time I ever heard him call my mother by that paternal name. But then, I never heard him before so grave and solemn-not a quotation, too-it was incredible: it was not my father speaking—it was another man. "Yes, I went there often. Lord Rainsforth was a remarkable person. Shyness, that was wholly without pride, (which is rare,) and a love for quiet literary pursuits, had prevented his taking that personal part in public life for which he was richly qualified; but his reputation for sense and honour, and his personal popularity, had given him no inconsiderable influence even, I believe, in the formation of cabinets, and he had once been prevailed upon to fill a high diplomatic situation abroad, in which I have no doubt that he was as miserable as a good man can be under any infliction. He was now pleased to retire from the world, and look at it through the loopholes of retreat. Lord Rainsforth had a great respect for talent, and a warm interest in such of the young as seemed to him to possess it. By talent, indeed, his family had risen, and were strikingly characterised. His ancestor, the first peer, had been a distinguished lawyer; his father had been celebrated for scientific attainments; his children, Ellinor and Lord Pendarvis, were highly accomplished. Thus, the family identified themselves with the aristocracy of intellect, and seemed unconscious of their claims to the lower aristocracy of rank. You must bear this in mind throughout my story.

"Lady Ellinor shared her father's tastes and habits of thought-(she was not then an heiress.) Lord Rainsforth talked to me of my career. It was a time when the French Revolution had made statesmen look round with some anxiety to strengthen the existing order of things, by alliance with all in the rising generation who evinced such ability as might influence their contemporaries.

"University distinction is, or was